Updated Classroom

I have been working in my classroom the past few days and finally have everything moved in, which is wonderful! I have just started to put up things and getting organized. Here are a few pictures of my new room: 

My super cute pirate calendar! My calendar is magnetic and I placed on the back of my desk this year.

I have all the genre posters on my cabinets. This year I'm going to put the books we've read next to poster. 

On the left side there are accuracy strategies and the right side there are comprehension strategies. Underneath there are short and long vowel posters. This is right behind my guided reading table. 

My FACE/CAFE board. After taking this picture I notice it was crooked and fixed it....just didn't take a picture but you get the idea. I still need to put The Face of a Reader at the top of it. Then after the first day I will put up my students pictures with them holding up a book.

I got the idea to hang the buckets like this on Pinterest which I'm totally obsessed with now! I think it's a very cute idea so we'll see how it works out. It might be a little high for kids to right but I'm putting a stool right next to it to give them a boost. 

I'm not in love with this board just yet so I might be changing it around a bit. It says "All Hands on Deck" and is for my class family jobs. Next to the job chart is my classroom rules on a ribbon. I really like the placement and how this turned out. 

This is a view from my door. I started on this side of the room but clearly have not finished it. The shapes are at the top and below that is going to be my math board. Then I have my US map up and may put up a world map too. Then I'm going to put "Reading Takes Us Places" and we're going to list and mark on the map what books took us places on the map. As you can see the desk are together and there is still a big mess in the room. 

This is my homeworkopoly board-obviously not done! I need to reconfigure it to fit the bulletin board. My ideas are either a. put a boarder around and make the board game pieces fit closer together on the board so it all comes together or b. just print off more pieces to make the board games pieces a bit longer. Thoughts? P.S. Although I love how bulletin boards look when they are done I do not like doing it. It takes me forever to do them and I try to be a perfectionist (which I never am), get frusterated, possibly walk away for awhile, and then end up just settling for good enough. (Sorry for the rant!) 

Anyways I'm very excited about the new school year starting! Only 18 more days! Yes, 18! I've had a wonderful summer and I feel like it's time to get back into the school groove. I'm meeting my new team tomorrow and taking more pictures of a hopefully more put together room! 

Currently I am...

Partying with-



who is hosting a THINK WRITE SHARE party! Join the fun!

Listening to tosh.o, the rain, and my bf snoring.

Loving my bf for helping me for move heavy stuff into my classroom tomorrow and my bro for writing me a thank you note!

Thinking about all the stuff I need to get done before Meet the

Teacher!

Wanting adorable new clothes for work...teachers can go back to school shopping too!

Needing to do laundry...it’s piling up. Tomorrow’s another day.

Stalking Pinterest!  4^th grade Frolics and The Inspired Apple

Estimation Station and Confessions

Estimation Station:

I just got my wonderful Estimation Station in the mail this week from Can Do Kinders. The Estimation Station is now going to be to be used as a take home bag. Each Friday a student will take the bag home and place items to estimate in the jar. On Monday the students will bring the bag back and the class will make estimations throughout the week. Then on Friday we will graph our estimations and count to find out how many items are in the jar. I made two sheets that will go in the Estimation Station bag and will also include the estimation book Betcha!

Click HERE to get your free estimation sheets!  

Hope you all like this and can use it!

Now my confessions:

EEK! I am going to meet my new team next week! I'm super excited but a little nervous. I mean I'm sure they have a well oiled plan working for them and boom I come in shaking things up. I don't want to be the annoying teacher that ask for help all the time but I am new to the school and don't know how things work there just yet. I hope my team is friendly, welcoming, understanding, helpful, professional, creative, sharers, and fun! I know it seems like I'm asking for everything under the sun! I just want to be liked, appreciated, and valued on my new team. Sometimes it can be hard to establish yourself when you are new at school. It's a whole new group to win over-don't even get me started on admin and parents! I'm pumped about our team meeting and want to know your recommendations. Should I bring a welcome/back to school gift? Is that too much since I don't even know them? I know I'll bring my own things I've created and done in the past as well as the fabulous things I've found on blogs to the table to share! I know I'll bring my planner. I know I'll bring lots of enthusiasm -I love back to school season!  Do you recommend bringing anything else? I'm not sure how other school's run their team meetings. I just need a little encouragement since I feel like I've always been the newbie and never on the other side.

Bucket Filler Queen

I just love the blog Oh the Places We'll Go! She is the Bucket Filler Queen in my opinion. She has everything you need to get your class thinking positive and acting kind. I have been admiring her classroom bucket for a long time now and was about to make one but then she posted an awesome giveaway. She is giving away an adorable classroom bucket and I can't miss out on this opportunity! Go check our her blog!

Cardinal Directions

I have created cardinal directions for my pirate theme and thought I would share. I think it is important for students to see the cardinal directions in the room as well as on a map. Click on the pictures to upload the documents.



I have been working hard in my classroom and hope to upload some pictures soon!

Pirate Poetry

One of my goals for this upcoming school year is to consistently do poetry every week in my class.
This is how I plan for poetry in my class:

Monday: Read the poem together with the teacher, enjoy the poetry and place poem in poetry folder
Tuesday: Student read the poem together, highlight any sight words in the poetry folder
Wednesday: Have a few volunteers read the poem
Thursday:  Have students buddy read the poem together
Friday: Have students read to a parent volunteer to earn a extra turn at homeworkoply

I also wanted to get excited about doing a poetry folder so I made this Pirate Poetry cover. Hopefully some of you can use this in your class. Click on the picture to get the cover in google docs.

I am also going to be compiling some poems to use in my poetry notebook. Look for back to school poetry for August and more themed poems for other months!

I WON!

I finally won a giveaway! I could not be any more excited this has totally made my day!!!! I won a estimation jar from Can Do Kinders! I can't wait to use this for math! I just know it will be an instant favorite with my kids!


I love all the ideas that were posted with this giveaway as well. I think I will use a variety of these methods with my estimation jar. So far I am thinking that each week my Student (Pirate) of the Week can fill up the estimation jar with 100 items of less. Throughout the week students can write their estimations and place them in a can next to the jar. Then on Friday we will graph the estimations and then count the items to see what was a close or correct estimation. I think this will be a really fun way to get families involved with math and to get students engaged and excited about learning!

Does anyone out their in blog land have a cute graph counting by 10's to 100? If not I think I'll be making one in a few days!